Attention all Knifemakers!.....Product dealers/retailers and/or knife makers/sharpeners/hobbyists (etc) are not permitted to insert business related text/videos/images (company/company name/product references) and/or links into your signature line, your homepage url (within the homepage profile box), within any posts, within your avatar, nor anywhere else on this site. Market research (such as asking questions regarding or referring to products/services that you make/offer for sale or posting pictures of finished projects) is prohibited. These features are reserved for supporting vendors and hobbyists.....Also, there is no need to announce to the community that you are a knifemaker unless you're trying to sell something so please refrain from sharing.
Thanks for your co-operation!

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

A word of caution on the mild over damascus. In thin sections carbon migration will occur from the high carbon damascus to the mild steel, it is just a matter of to whay extent. You could end up with the steel equivalent all the way through the biullet of approx 1050 or 1060 if you are not carefull.

Looks really good. Emoto/neck looks much shorter than the passaround and should be much more comfy. Profile looks much better, tip looks cool. And the san mai looks good as well, thanks for the WIP. Nice work!

Thanks Guys.
Carbon migration is a good point and something i'm very aware of in san mai. Interestingly you can see the carbon which has leeched out when you polish against the grain with an edm stone. I expect finger stones would be great to bring this out as an additional effect above the san mai. Short of using a slice of nickel on the weld line, I accept a little carbon loss as part of the deal. All though a little migration is clearly happening at the weld line, I have never noticed any loss of hardness, performance of the steel, I have made allot of san mai blades, some in steel which only had 0.5%C in the first place. I believe this is because, I am not repeatedly overheating the billet, using a power hammer helps most here, that and good temperature control, grinding after HT helps prevent any additional carbon loss.
I suspect the main candidates for excessive carbon loss are, poor temperature control, especially in a coke forge, and taking repeated forge welding heats.
The bonus of san mai is that you can take the core steel harder and get away with it in terms of flex, (if you have enough carbon left) The core in the mild/damascus was testing a tad over 60hrc with a hardness file, so I know there was no excessive carbon loss in this case. It is a bit of a juggling act though, between core thickness vs decarb vs edge support from soft steel, but thats why its such fun.